KARACHI, Nov 2: The University of Karachi’s Space Week celebrations for 2008 came to a close on Saturday with a burst of colour and an inspiring display of youthful potential, as the final event of the Space Week programme was the display of posters at the PIA Planetarium here. The posters had been submitted by students of various educational institutions in the city as part of a competition.

Principally organized by the KU’s Institute of Space and Planetary Astrophysics (ISPA), students had been asked to submit entries based on this year’s Space Week theme, ‘Exploring the universe.’

Pasted on the walls of the Planetarium, the entries ranged from the straightforward to the fantastical. It appeared that the vast majority of the work had been done by female students, with only a handful of males. The work depicted different permutations of the central theme such as the students’ interpretation of the Big Bang theory, satellite communications, the solar system, effects of pollution, galaxies, eclipses etc.

Some works were very colourful and incredibly imaginative, while others were more conventional, akin to diagrams found in textbooks and academic journals. Some students used not a single word to communicate their ideas, simply depending on colours and shapes, while others accompanied their art-works with mini essays. It was interesting to see that along with information provided in English, a few entrants also wrote captions in Urdu.

There were also a few pieces featuring digital art-work, submitted by students of KU’s Visual Studies department, which were quite slick and – perhaps keeping with the theme – reflected the cold darkness that is often associated with outer space.

The organizers told Dawn that 15 entries have been short-listed and if a sponsor is found, these will be collated in the form of a calendar as 2009 has been dubbed the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations General Assembly, as the year marks the 400th anniversary of both Galileo Galilei’s first recorded observations with a telescope as well as the publication of Johannes Kepler’s Astronomia Nova.

“The whole idea for the calendar was Durriya Kazi’s (head of KU’s Visual Studies department). Every participant of the competition will get a certificate. A total of 150 entries were received, but due to space constraints we could only display 118,” said Dr M. Shahid Qureshi, the ISPA in-charge.

As for the winners of the competition, he said first prize went to Zain Rahim, a BSc Honours student at KU’s department of physics; second prize was secured by Tooba Siddiqui, a second year inter arts student at the BAMM PECHS College while third prize went to Hira Qizilbash, an MSc final year student belonging to KU’s department of physics.

There were also two special prizes: the first for Mahwish, a second year pre-medical student at the Government College for Women, Shahrah-i-Liaquat and the second for Fatima Hasan, a BSc Honours student at the University of Karachi’s department of geology.

The panel of judges included Ms Kazi, Dr Qureshi, Dr Sohail Zaki Farooqui of the National University of Science and Technology and other faculty members.

“We felt every entry deserved to be displayed. There was no first, second or third. But since we had announced that it would be a competition we had to award positions. Otherwise all the 15 finalists deserve first prize,” said the ISPA head.